Trust Issues
by Miss Barbara
Summary: Team Gibbs has trust issues... Now Beta-ed.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Chapter 1**

**A/N This story is set in season 6 after dagger. Also spoilers for judgement day. Now beta-ed**

Tony cried out in pain. He should have known not to piss Ziva off. Now she had some kind of vulcan deathgrip on his right hand and she wasn't about to let go. "I am so sorry Ziva, I will never ever do that again!"

"Do what again?" Gibbs asked, walking in the squad room.

"Nothing boss", Tony answered quickly as Ziva released his hand, "Just a difference of opinion."

"I still need your reports in an hour so I suggest you stop playing and go back to work."

"Yeah, about work boss, Vance called, he wanted to see you in his office about half an hour ago." He said looking at his watch. "And I will work very hard on that report boss" Tony added after a glare from Gibbs.

He and Ziva sat back at their desks while Gibbs went up to the directors office. "I still think I was right" Tony said, hoping that he wouldn't make her angry again.

"I do not understand these weird American idioms, and today, I am really annoyed by this one of the little fly."

"Bird Zee-va, it's: A little bird told me. You've been living here for almost 3 years and you still don't understand our idioms."

"bird, fly, same difference Tony!" Ziva was starting to get a little agitated at this point. "Today was the second time this week that a suspect made fun of me and my idioms."

Tony chuckled, which resulted in a paper ball flying towards his head. "Your use of idioms went back, I think it's because your trip to Israel." He looked at her first and decided it was save to go on. "And our suspect, he laughed so hard he confessed by mistake." she said laughing with his eyes locked on his computer screen.

Tony's gaze shifted from his screen back to Ziva's desk. Not surprised that she wasn't there anymore. Ziva was standing behind him. he knew that this would happen if he continued to talk.

"I am trained to kill, scare and intimidate, not to mention my interrogation techniques. And what happens? I mess up your annoying language and this guy laughs so hard that he practically confesses."

She slaps the back of his head and walks back to her desk and started to work without an other word. Tony decided that it would be smart if he started to work on his report to since Gibbs could return any minute.

After an hour he was finished, printed his report and placed it on Gibbs desk. The boss himself still wasn't back from his meeting with Vance an it was almost 5 o'clock, that was highly unusual. He started up a game that would keep him busy till it was time to go home.

One minute before five Ziva also finished her report. They had already packed their bags when her phone started buzzing.

She answered it and after after a few seconds she hung up. "Director wants us upstairs" she said to Tony. With a sigh he dropped his backpack and went after Ziva up to the directors office.

"DiNozzo, David" the director greeted them. From the look of it he already had a long and heated discussion with Gibbs, and apperantly Vance had won, using the director card. Tony's hope of a nice relaxing weekend with beer, movies and pizza was gone. In stead he had a vision of some horrible team training of something. Or even worst, sensitivity training, of sexual harassment classes. He wanted to close the door but just before he closed it he saw Abby and McGee coming so he held the door open for them.

"Thank you for coming" Vance said and looked them all in the eyes. "You guys used to be the agencies best team, but scuttlebutt told me that there are trust issues. I can't have trust issues in my major crimes unit team. So I am sending you all to a team building camp. Dr. Mallard won't join because of his age and mister Palmer has exams to study for."

He paused a few seconds, letting the words sink in. "This means the following; you are going home and pack a bag. You need to pack a tent, sleeping bag, 2 fresh sets of clothes and other things you might need. Don't pack to much, you need to carry everything yourself. You will leave tonight with a van from the front entrance at 9 pm. Be there or expect punishment."

Stunned the team left his offices and everybody silently packed their things, and went home.

McGee grabbed Abby's arm just before she went in to the elevator. "If I bring the tent, can you bring a double sleeping bag? That would save us a lot of luggage." Abby happily accepted his offer and was the last one to leave, since she had to say goodbye to all her babies in the lab..


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Chapter 2**

A few minutes before 9 everyone was present. Ziva had just a normal bag pack, claiming that she would sleep under the stars, just like she had did with Mossad. Abby and McGee both had a brand new survival backpack and Gibbs had a military issue weekend bag. Tony had the largest backpack of all, claiming that he needed a lot of stuff to look good evey morning.

Everyone wore hiking shoes and even Abby did not wore her usually platform boots. All the teammembers had also chosen some fitting close with enough freedom to move. A black van stopped at a parkingspot outside of the gate and a the driver came out.

The driver introduced himself as John and told them to sit in the back of the car. They drove for 2 hours before it stopped. When they got out the only thing they saw was trees and green hills. They where in the middle of a forest.

"Hello, my name is Greg. I am your guide this weekend." The man who came out of a little house started to talk. "Here is a safe, you need to leave you phones, blackberries, watches and stuff like that behind. One of you will close it with a combination of numbers, you will get all your belongings back Monday afternoon, once you returned here."

A few minutes after that everyone had dropped their things in the safe and Greg started to talk again. "We will leave in 10 minutes, go to the toilet if you need to. Our first hike is almost 10 miles, we have one stop. I will not lower my pace, help each other out if you have to."

The first mile Tony made jokes, and Abby and McGee chatted, after that they became more silent, only speaking when they really needed to, Tired from the day they already had. The last mile everyone but Ziva was about to drop down dead. When they finally reached the place where they would stay the night everyone set up their tents and fell a sleep within 5 minutes after their arrival.

At 8 am that morning, after roughly five and a half hours of sleep Greg woke them all up. "Good morning people. In this box is your breakfast, we will leave in half an hour, make sure that you have everything packed because I don't wait."

In the box, placed under a tree there were 5 baguettes and an equal number of water bottles. Each of them ate their part quickely before packing up and cleaning themselves. Everybody, including Tony managed to be ready within the time limit.

They walked for an hour and then arrived at a small river. Over the river where 2 slim but rigid for them to hold on to, one to walk over. There was a thirth rope to tie all the team members together, they had a few minutes to determinant the order. They decided that Gibbs would go first, after him would come Abby, McGee, Ziva and Tony last. They all had to carry there own luggage and Tony cursed at the amount he had taken with him.

If one of them would fall down, he or she would probably take the others down to. The only one with problems was McGee, which was to be expected. Ziva almost danced over the rope without any problem. The 30 meter cross over took them almost half an hour, but they made it all save and dry to the other side of the river. Tony was just a little bit angry when he discovered a bridge just 200 meters to their right. But even he knew why they didn't take the bridge and stopped complaining about it.

Free from the ropes the team had no time to get their breathing back to normal and her heartrate a little down. Greg continued to walk, leaving the team no other option then to follow. Sometime around 2 pm the leader handed everyone a new baguette and they found a little stream to fill their bottles again.

They had a small pause to eat their food and have some rest. After twenty minutes the leader told them that they would walk 7 more miles and then settle for the night. They walked not as fast as first and at the end of the afternoon they arrived at a small open place in the woods. They set up their tents and took a little break.

When they were all settled Greg started to talk. Tony sighed loudly and rolled with his eyes. "This next mission is for your own luxury. You can earn points with the next game. The amount of points you earn depends on the task and if you finish it or not. You can spend them on food, shower time or a phone call. You are going to spend these points together so think and talk about it."

Greg gave them a few minutes to talk and relax. After 10 minutes they gathered around in the middle between their tents. "This is the mission." Greg started. "I have different cards with exercises, every card has a task. If you preform the task as noted you earn the number of points as noted at the bottom of the card. Those points can you exchange for the things listed on this card. You must spend all your points, you can't keep them till tomorrow."

Abby and Tim choose the first card. They started with an easy exercise. Abby was blindfolded and she needed to walk a route trough the trees, Tim had to use his voice to guide Abby. She took tiny steps and made it without falling down.

When the blindfold was removed she jumped excitingly up and down hugging Tim. After that one they did a group. Ziva had to stand on a box and fall backwards, the rest of the team had to catch her.

Ziva stood at the box with her arms crossed before her chest and her eyes closes. She hesitated. "I've got you, we've got you Ziva" Tony whispered. Ziva took a deep breath and let her self fall back. Mossad had learned her not to trust anyone. The team applauded and Tony hugged Ziva briefly, this earned the team a lot of points.

Abby did an task with Gibbs and McGee with Tony. Ziva walked up to Tony, "We can do one together" she said. Tony was happy that she proposed that they would do a task together. He knew that his strained relation with Ziva was the reason that they were send on this camp.

She blindly picked a card.

_Person A has to carry person B.  
Person A is blindfolded.  
Person B tells person A how to walk  
Person B also needs to collect all the red  
colored flags I will hang in the trees.  
Good luck._

Ziva obviously would be person B, but carried around in the woods by Tony, she wasn't sure about it. She hesitated just a minute but she saw the hurt look in Tony's eyes and didn't want to hurt him anymore.

She had not trusted him, he had promised to keep her save that one time then she was being accused of killing federal agents. And a few months she was shipped of back to Israel, Tony had not called her once. She was disappointed in him, she had really thought that they had something special. Now they where both back on the team he had acted like nothing had changed, that had hurt her.

She blindfolded him and jumped on his back. "If you drop me, I will kill you with this blindfold" she whispered in his ear. Tony chuckled,"Relax Ziva, you know me, I always sleep with a woman before I let her fall." Ziva pushed her finger in his cheek and started to guide him trough the forest. It took them a while but after 45 minutes they had found all of the 20 flags.

"Ziva, I know I am not aloud to let you touch the ground, but I'm, um, I am getting a little tired, so you can get of my back? "

Ziva carefully slid around to his back and Tony let himself sink on the ground.

The team had collected enough points to buy them a nice dinner, Mac and Cheese with steak and they also bought a campfire for that night.

After dinner Abby sat between Gibbs and McGee and she was holding McGee's hand. McGee looked pretty happy Tony thought. He was sitting with Ziva at the other sit of the fire.

He knew why she was angry. It was not like he had not tried, but every time he thought about her, he immediately saw Jenny, dead, on the ground. And it that wasn't bad enough his mind always flashed back to the conversation he had with her in autopsy. _'we are all alone_'.

Until that point he had believed that he and Ziva had something special, a connection. He could call it love, or just deep friendship, but they had a special bond. And all of that had been blown away when she went back to Israel. He had waited for her to come by and say their goodbye's maybe a goodbye kiss that evening. He had waited until the last moment. Then it was clear to him that he was all alone. She was right, nobody can be trusted.

When he looked sideways he saw that she was now sitting next to Gibbs, probably talking about the best way to attack and enemy in close combat. His gaze shifted tot Abby and McGee, they looked pretty happy together. Maybe it was just him, Anthony DiNozzo, never really loved, and never will be.

With a sad smile he went to his tent, not noticing the pair of brown eyes that burned almost a hole in his back.

Not long after Tony went in his tent the rest of the team decided to call it the night. Tomorrow was going to be an other long, tiring day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Chapter 3**

Ziva lay on her back in her sleeping bag, her arms crossed behind her head. She was thinking, and she better not be disturbed, that persons would learn what serious consequences are.

She had thought about this for days, but she could just not come up with an explanation why he had not contact her in Israel. They had been really good friends and he should have.

Deep inside her she knew that she easy could have taken the first step herself. But some really small part of her wanted him to be the person that would make the first contact.

She was drawn out of her thoughts as she noticed that it had started to rain. Without hesitation she took her stuff and moved in to Tony's tent. Waking him up, and he wasn't to happy about it. "Ziva what are you doing?" he asked with a sigh.

"It is raining, so move over." She did not gave him an option, she just told him to do it. And Tony didn't kick her out of his tent, he just moved over and tried to get some more sleep.

After 10 minutes he was painfully aware of the woman that was sleeping in his tent. She was breathing loudly, but not snoring and she smelled like a fresh rain. Which was probably because she had been out in the rain. He had to be honest with himself, and he hated that, because it was hard to lie to yourself.

She was the love of his life. She was right there, and at the same time miles away. He wanted to hold her, kiss her and tell her over and over again that he loved her. But he knew that that wasn't going to happen. Not in a million years.

Ziva felt him move beside her. She wasn't asleep either, and it was irritating her, but it was his tent, so she had no right to say something about it. That thought confused her, since when was she so soft?

She inhaled deep and enjoyed the scent of Tony. He smelled a little like the forest, a hint of his newest fragrance and and really masculine and manly. Every inch of her body screamed that she should roll over and snuggle up to him, talk to him and make everything alright. But she was sure that something like that was not going to happen.

The next morning Greg was again way to happy and got a glare from Gibbs. "I have a small announcement. We are going home today instead of tomorrow, we got a call of your director. There appears to be a mistake with your dates, so you can go home a day early."

Of all people Abby was the happiest, she jumped around and hugged everybody. After that she yelled: "Mama is coming home babies!" Which earned her an other confused look from Greg.

"This means however" Greg continued "That we have to walk 16 miles today. And since this is after all a team building camp. I have a nice little surprise for you. Breakfast is in the box, we leave in 30 minutes."

The team was happy and McGee whistled when he was packing the tent. Ziva offered to carry the tent but Tony wouldn't let her. After 34 minutes they were ready to leave. 4 minutes late but nobody complained about it. Greg appeared with a few robes.

"You guys need to make pairs and will be tied together. One person will be paired with me. After that we will tie a left feet to a right feet, and the same with hands. You need to communicate, please make pairs. "

Abby paired up with McGee and Tony with Ziva, leaving Greg with Gibbs. Tony chuckled, poor Greg.

Ziva went left and Tony took the right side. At first they tripped repeatedly, but it didn't take them long to develop a nice rhythm.

"I am sorry, I should have called." Tony said of out the blue.

Ziva stood still and looked at him. "Don't apologize, I am just as wrong. I could have send you a e-mail myself." After that statement Ziva started to move again, walking a lot faster then before, almost dragging Tony along.

"Ziva" Tony said. Surprising her with his voice, soft and almost inaudible. "What happened with us? We used to be good together, good as a team but also good friends. Please tell me what went wrong."

At this point of their conversation they were behind on the group but neither of them cared, this was an importent conversation that they needed to have. This was after all why they were here.

Ziva saw no point in holding back her anger anymore. "You promised to keep me save" She whispered, her face showing no emotions. "You promised, and I thought that I could trust you, I really trusted you you know. But when we were all shipped of you did not even contact me once." Her face kept the same emotionless expression but when Tony looked in her eyes he saw anger but also hurt.

Tony answered, his voice soft "You left NCIS HQ right after Vance gave us the orders, you didn't even come by my house to say goodbye. I wanted to see you, but I had a few hours to pack my bags, I knew that you wouldn't leave until next week, McGee told me" He grabbed her hand and stood across her. "I was convinced we had a connection, something special between us. But I guess that in the end. We are all alone."

Ziva winced, there had not a day gone by that she hadn't regret that she said that. When she had said that, she had really believed it, but after going back to Tel Aviv she had missed the team, even Palmer. And she had found out that she had never been really alone when she was in DC.

"I couldn't handle seeing you. I knew that you would be drinking and hating yourself for what happened. I could not see you tear down yourself. I've known you as Tony DiNozzo, and I really liked that man. And I am wondering every day since I am back where he is. And I know, I could have send you a mail, but that is not what happened. Let us please make out so that we can go back to normal."

Tony smiled. "Make up Zee-va" He said stretching her name like he used to do.

Ziva smiled back and carefully placed her lips against his. "Maybe I meant make out" she mumbled.

Tony used his free hand to grab her around the waist and drew her close. Pushing himself up to her, kissing her like there was no tomorrow. Passion that been building up for years came loose in that one kiss.

After what felt like forever Tony ended the kiss and came up for air. "Guess we should have done that a long time ago." Tony whispered in Ziva's ear. "But now, we really should go, I would like to go home today, and we lost the group so, let us start searching."

He forgot that Ziva was an excellent tracker and after an hour the saw the group at the horizon.

Abby and McGee were walking hand in hand and talking to each other. Gibbs was dragging Greg around, who didn't look to happy. After a few long hours they finally saw the cabin appearing at the horizon. Abby ran to the cabin, but forgot that she was still attached to McGee so they both tumbled down the hill.

An hour later everybody had been to the toilet and refreshed themselves. They dropped their baggage in to the van. Abby was the last to get in the back of the van. She waved goodbye to the woods. "It was nice, but I can hear my babies calling so I have to go." Greg gave up wondering about Abby so he pushed her carefully in the back of the van and closed the doors.

John drove the team back to the headquarters and left without an goodbye. The team was welcomed back by Vance but they only glared at him. Abby hugged everybody goodbye and within five minutes they all drove of to their own homes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Chapter 4**

Tony liked taking long, hot shower ,especially after some back to the wilderness camp. He had washed himself at least twice with his favorite soap and was singing out loud.

"_And more, much more than this; I did it maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaay!"_

He was singing so loud that he didn't hear the doorbell at first. But when he stopped singing to catch his breath he heard the doorbell ring. He turned of the shower and quickly dried himself and put on a boxer while he yelled; "COMING!"

He was still pretty wet when he walked to the door and opened it. Till his surprise it was Ziva. "Couldn't you just have picked the lock?" He asked while she walked by him.

"Could you please put on some clothes, we really need to talk" Ziva said. Knowing that he wouldn't win an argument he walked back to his bedroom to put on some clothes. He returned 5 minutes later wearing black sweatpants and a grey NCIS shirt.

Ziva already grabbed two beers from his fridge, handing him one and drinking the other one herself. "We kinda left business unfinished back in the woods" She said standing right in front of Tony.

Tony smiled, thinking that she meant the kiss. But his little dream shattered as Ziva continued. "I was scared when I was back in Israel, you know why is was scared? I was never scared!"

Frustrated she lifted her hands in the air. "i was scared, because if I would die, I would never hear Abby's music again, I would never play a game with McGee, and I would never be able to tell you what I feel for you"

Tony hugged her careful and rubbed her back. She didn't actually cry at this moment, but she was close. "how many times do I have to tell you Ziva, feelings don't make you weak"

He broke the hug and looked her in the eye, tears were glistering. "It's okay, I know how you feel, you should know that I love you to. And together we can work this out." He brought his lips to her cheek and carefully kissed the tears away. "We are going to be okay", he promised her. After that he guided her to the bedroom and laid her down to sleep, it took her seconds to fall asleep in his safe embrace, Tony on the other hand spend half the night wondering what he did to deserve such a wonderful person.


End file.
